'Really emotional win for me' - Mayo woman wins at Dublin Horse Show

CROSSMOLINA’S Hannah Gordon celebrated a special win last week at the Dublin Horse Show. Gordon and her Connemara pony Ballagh Bouncer rode to victory in the performance class Irish Draughts six years or older. It wasn't Hannah's first win at the famous RDS show, but definitely a very special one.

David Rischke: “Congratulations on your win. How would you rate the success?”
Hannah Gordon: “For me it definitely is one of the biggest wins of my life now. I won the Connemara version here in 2016 but it was very different because I had the experienced stallion Black Shadow back then. He knew what he was doing and I had to go along with him. But with Ballagh Bouncer it was different. We started him, I’ve done everything with him. I’ve been working towards this win from the first day, literally nine years working towards this win. He’s a really consistent horse, he was placed every year but we never managed to actually win it. When you don’t win it you start the week after, working towards the next year again. People say a lot of work went into it, but literally nine years of work went into it. It was a really special, really emotional win for me.”

DR: “I can only imagine the amount of effort, if you’re working towards a goal for nine years with the same horse.”
HG: “Ballagh Bouncer a really good horse. We have to bear in mind, there are a lot of different parts involved in that specific competition. All of the parts had never lined up for us before. Because there are a lot of parts, it might have happened but it never did line up. Last year for example, he jumped clear, but his dressage part wasn’t as good. I was lower there, so I finished third overall. I’d be really high in one section and then I’d lose marks somewhere else every other year. It never all came together the way it did this year. It's very special.”

DR: “You have participated —this wasn’t your first rodeo, was it?”
HG: “I never competed at the Dublin Horse Show as a child. I first started competing here about 12 years ago. I started riding for Liam Lynskey and he had the aforementioned Connemara stallion called Black Shadow, and he was the first pony that I qualified for Dublin. He went on to win the Connemara Performance Championship with me in 2016. That was the first year that I qualified Ballagh Bouncer for Dublin and he was second that year as well. Ballagh has qualified every year since except for the years of Covid because it wasn’t on. We’ve been placed every year except one but never managed to actually pull it off until now. The fact that we’ve won it now means that myself and Ballagh can never come back and compete in the class again as a combination. That’s it for us here.”

DR: “For anyone who isn't super familiar with the Horse Show: How does the performance class event that you've won actually work?”
HG: “There is a short dressage test—there are 80 marks for that. Then we jumped around a course of fences, including show jumps and natural jumps, up and down banks and across hedges. There are 160 marks for that if you go clear, which means leave all the fences up and make no mistake. Then they have another 30 marks, a way-of-going mark: How you left the fences up, was it in a good rhythm, any awkward jumps, was it smooth, did it look effortless. After that there’s what’s called a conformation phase, kind of like a beauty contest for horses. You take off the saddle and stand in front of a different judge. They look to see are their legs correct, are their joints in the right places, are their limbs straight, is there any problem with the horse, is there anything you wouldn’t like on the horse. There are 30 marks for that. Those scores get added up. The top five horses are brought back into the arena, then the judge rides the horses and scores them on how well she liked the ride and how well they went for her. There were 40 marks going there also.”

DR: “You definitely come from a family with equestrian pedigree, tell us more about it.”
HG: “I grew up riding ponies. Both sides of my family are equestrian. My Dad, Matt Gordon, rides and breaks horses for a living, and my brother Jonathan is based in Germany riding show jumpers for a living. My Mum’s family are Corcorans from Castlebar. Her brother does horses for a living and her dad would have also, and his children, Luke and Adam, are both riding horses for a living as well. So it’s on both sides of the family.”